The Sphinx, Vol. 14, No. 205

              28
THE SPHINX.
January 5, 1907.
THE BRITISH MUSEUM By Bart Kennedy.
I—THE MYSTERY OF RACE.
As you go through this place, that tells of the past, it may be tliat there will come to you thoughts of the profound differences lying between the races of men. For this great museum is the world’s human document. It tells of the coming and going of men. Of the rising and falling and passing of lines of strange kings. Of man’s ambitions and strugglings and fightings. It tells of things mysterious and significant.
But for me the most significant thing of which it tells is the profound difference lying between races.
Man has not solved the mystery of man. Science has but delved and fumbled and made loose assertions with a positive air. We know nothing real of the beginning of man. Indeed, the only thing real that we know is that in the beginning there existed mighty and potent races. It is as if we looked through a profound reach of time and saw a dense mist, and as if that dense mist suddenly rose and disclosed some strange race wondrous and puissant. And this is the only thing real that the egotistic thing called learning has to show us.
My feeling is this :—
This world is but a stopping place to which come beings from worlds separated by distances illimitable. For a while they stay and then they pass through a void immeasurable to other worlds.
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For the soul of man is immortal, despite what may be said to the contrary by groping, mole-eyed people of science. The soul of man passes on a stupendous journey from world to world. Now staying in worlds dark and dreary. Now living in worlds of unimaginable brilliance.
Man believes in a life after death. And is one to give up this beautiful and wonderful belief because of a few modern delvers who have the assurance to say that they can gauge infinite mysteries by their puny resolvents and little mathematical laws. Away with these small men who are called the men of science ! It would be more to the point did they do the labour of real men in the fields. I have no belief in them.
I feel that the mysterious phenomenon called race is the sign that marks souls bound on a certain journey. The Greeks were neither as the Egyptians, nor as the Arabs, nor as the men of Africa. And so it is to-day. We, the white men of the West, are not as the men who are black, nor are we as the yellow men of the East.
May it not be that different races of men had their genesis in different worlds ? May it not be that their souls began their world-to-world pilgrimage from places set immeasurably apart in the heavens ?
There are worlds and worlds lying behind even what man calls the farthest star. Worlds, shining, illimitable and wondrous.
And as I wandered through this strange museum I thought cf the futility of attempting to bridge over the profound and mysterious differences of race.
II.—THE EGYPTIANS.
For me the Egyptians are the greatest of all the people of antiquity.
The picture-concept that comes to my mind as I pass by their gods and their statues in this great museum is that of a people mighty and wise and calm. A people possessed of strange powers and secrets. Surely these people, of the time
gone thousands of years, held within their grasp the subtle powers that are called the powers of magic. They must have known of the power lying behind life. A people skilled in the reading of amens and the weaving of enchantments.
How great and weird and terrible are their gods ! From what far world of strangeness did these Egyptians journey from in the beginning ? Was it from some world of immense and dreadful powers and shapes ? Some world in the Beyond of unimaginable strangness.
Their dread, strange-shaped gods appall me.
Who is to tell of all that these mighty and wise people knew ? Did they know of the secret of passing through the air, or of the striking dead by a wave of the hand? Or could they pass themselves at will through a solid mass ? Did they know of the secret lying behind fire ?
How strange are their faces. At once wise and benign and awesome and sinister.
I feel this :—
These Egyptians knew of the way to control the mystery of the life-force. They knew of the secret of the arresting of decay. But they stayed not, but passed. For their life in this world was but a pause in their stupendous, illimitable journey.
These people of the calm, wise, indomitable faces ! Here in this world they lived in a land of strange light and sun. A land wherein lived a wonderful river.
Thousands of years have come and gone and we behold them through the reach of time, a potent, strange people. We know not of the time of their coming.
A people of mystery and tremendous, dread gods.
An-kheft-ka, He lived in the time of the Fourth Dynasty, nearly six thousand years ago. He was one of the royal race.'
A terrible life is in his face. And he stands in a threatening attitude.
It is as if he suddenly came to stillness whilst the blood pulsed fierce within him. As if he willed it that he should stand through time to show what manner of men lived long ago in Egypt.
This statue is as if it lived. The fire of life, and the vividness and potency of the fire of life, are arrested and held within it. It is even as if one of magic power suddenly arrested a flame as it shot fiercely to its highest—and as if the flame stayed as it was through thousands of years.
The face of this man of old Egypt is sinister and dread. A face of sudden destruction.
It is as if he held within him the death-power of myriads of men. As if with a blow he might destroy a multitude. As if his very thought would kill and wither.
A face human and not human. The very power of destruction within it is not as the power of destruction known to us—the men of the present time.
This An-kheft-ka might kill from afar. He might project from himself subtle and dreadful forces of death.
The face of this Egyptian brings fear as one looks upon it in this strange room.
And before the vision appear the people of old Egypt.
They appear in the silence with their gods. One sees them through the profound Afar in strange, clear pictures. Their vast, shining towns appear. Yonder arise the pyramids..
The radiance of the sun falls shining upon their wonderful Nile.
These strange-faced people of the past. Whither have they gone ? To what Ifar world have they
carried their magic and their wisdom and their secrets ?
And strange thoughts come to the mind as one stands here in the great room in the midst of the signs and tokens of the long passed civilisation. One thinks of the coming and the going of men. Of the passing, and the mysterious journeyings of races. Of the silence that falls.
And one is filled with hope.
For the silence of death is but the sign of reaching of a stage upon a profound journey.
The Stock Markets: How to profit by Them. Investment and Speculation: Past, Present, and Future.
The science of Investment The Theory of Successful Speculation.
How and when to Operate in Home Rails.
How and When to Operate in American Railways.
Points Concerning American Rails.
How to Invest in Mines Guiding Principles for Investors in Mines.
The Controlling Groups in the Mining Market. Guiding Principles forlnv-estors in New Issues.
Marginal Investment: The Prudent Operator’s Favourite Method Explained.
Instalment Investment. Investment for Small Capitalists.
Call Option: The System Fully Explained. Mr. Arthur Crump, late City Editor of “The Times.” described Options as the most scientific and prudent way of operating on the Stock Exchange.
Insurance as a means of Raising, Saving, and Investing Money.
Protection of Capital and Increase of Income.
The Rearrangement and Readjustementof Investments.
Stock Exchange Terms. Investment Tables.
Increase of Income by World-Wide Investment. CONTENTS.
Post Free on mentioning THE SPHINX, to The Secretary,
LONDON 8 PARIS EXCHANGE, Ltd ,
BASILDON HOUSE, BANK. LONDON, E C.
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